This is an expanded version of an article in Yediot Aharonot, June 30, 2002

The Gaza strip is a perfect realization of the Israeli vision of
" separation " . Surrounded with electric fences and army posts, completely
sealed off the outside world, Gaza has become a huge prison. About
onethird
of its land was confiscated for the 7,000 Israeli settlers living there
(and their defense array), while over a million Palestinians are crowded
in
the remaining areas of the prison. With no work or sources of income,
about
80% of its residents depend, for their living, on UNRWA, or contributions
from Arab states and charity organizations. Now Israel is considering the
imprisonment there of families of suicide bombers from the West Bank (1).
As a senior Israeli analyst stated, Gaza can now serve as " the penal
colony " of Israel its " devils island, Alcatraz " . (Nahum Barnea, Yediot
Aharonot June 21, 2002).

This is the future that Sharon and the Israeli army designate for the
West Bank as well. While the external fence is presently being built, Israel's
current military operation is set to be the final step in the
implementation the IDF plans for reestablishing full military rule (which
was abolished in large parts of the West Bank during the Oslo process).
Though Israel describes everything it does as a spontaneous reaction to
terror, the plan was fully spelled out in the Israeli media already back
in March 2001, soon after Sharon entered office. Alex Fishman, military and
strategic analyst of Yediot Aharonot, explained at the time that since
Oslo, " the IDF regarded the occupied territories as if they were one
territorial cell " , and this placed some constraints on the IDF and enabled
a certain amount of freedom for the PA and the Palestinian population. The
new plan is a return to the concept of the military administration during
the preOslo years: the occupied territories will be divided into tens of
isolated " territorial cells " , each of which will be assigned a special
military force, " and the local commander will have freedom to use his
discretion " as to when and who to shoot. (Yediot Ahronot weekend
supplement, March 9.2001).

The first stage of this plan the destruction of the institutions of the
Palestinian Authority was completed in the previous 'Operation Defensive
Shield' in April of this year. In practice, from that time on, the towns
and villages of the West Bank have been completely sealed. Even exit by
foot, which was possible up to that point, became blocked, and movement
between the " territorial cells " now requires formal permits from the
Israeli military authorities. Soldiers and snipers prevent any
" unauthorized " walking to agricultural fields, to places of work and
study, or for medical treatment.

However, unlike the preOslo period of Israeli military rule, the army
makes it clear that there is no intention to construct any civil administration
that will take care of the basic daily needs of the two million
Palestinians, such as food supplies, health services, garbage and sewage.
For these tasks, some form of a Palestinian Authority will be maintained,
though in practice it will not be allowed to function.

As a 'military source' told Ha'aretz, " Internal conclusions of the
security echelons, following operation 'Defensive Shield', assessed that the
functioning of the civil branches of the Palestinian Authority had reached
an unprecedented nadir, mainly due to the destruction the IDF operation
left behind in Ramallah (including the systematic destruction of computers
and databases)... Combined with the severe restrictions on movement, the
Palestinian population is becoming, as the military source defined it,
'poor, dependent, unemployed, rather hungry, and extreme'... The financial
reserves of the Palestinian authority are reaching the bottom... In a
future not far off, the majority of Palestinians will only be able to
maintain a reasonable life through the help of international aid. "
(Ha'aretz Hebrew edition, June 23, 2002, Amos Har'el). Thus, the West Bank
is being driven to the level of poverty of the Gaza strip.

Nevertheless, at the same time that Israel deprives the Palestinians of
their means of income, it also makes a substantial effort to diminish or
block international aid, under the pretext that the aid is used to support
terrorists or their families. At the outset of its new 'operation', Israel
" decided to stop the flow of foodaid and medicine from Iran and Iraq to
Palestinians in the territories " (Ha'aretz, June 24, 2002, Amos Har'el).
Iranian and Iraqi aid is an easy target for Israel, as these countries
belong to the " Axis of Evil " . However, Israel started launching a more
ambitious campaign: The EU the largest PA donor is under constant
pressure from Israel to cut its aid, which is used, inter alia to pay the
salaries of teachers and health workers. The tactics are always the same:
Israel provides some documents presumably linking the PA to terror. Any
aid to the PA is, therefore, aid to terror (2).
UNRWA's aid is the next target. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for
Palestinians in the Near East (UNRWA) has become a major source of food
for Palestinians in the besieged territories. Its food supplies are now
delivered not only to the refugee camps, but also in towns and villages.
The amount of food UNRWA supplies has increased fourfold in two years (3).

Recently, " Israel has begun a campaign in the United States and the United
Nations to urge a reconsideration of the way the UN Relief and Works
Agency, which runs the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and
Gaza, operates. Israel charges that UNRWA workers simply ignored the fact that
Palestinian organizations were turning the camps into terrorist bases and
it is demanding the agency start reporting all military or terrorist
actions within the camps to the UN.... Meanwhile, Jewish and proIsraeli
lobbyists in the U.S. are waging a parallel campaign ... American Jewish
lobbyists are basing their efforts on the fact that the U.S. currently
contributes some 30 percent of UNRWA's $400 million a year budget, and is
therefore in a position to influence the agency: A congressional refusal
to approve UNRWA's funding could seriously disrupt its operations. (Ha'aretz
June 29, 2002, Nathan Guttman). The campaign is not yet demanding cutting
UNRWA's aid and presence altogether, but raising the impossible demand
that UNRWA should serve as an active force in " the war against terror "
( " reporting military or terrorist actions " ) is the first step towards such
a demand.(4) Since September 11, Sharon has been constructing
an analogy between the occupied territories and Afghanistan
(with the PA as Al Qaeda). He keeps declaring that the solution to
Palestinian terror, and the required 'reforms',
should be along the lines set in Afghanistan. The analogy is
frighteningly revealing: As it established the 'reforms' in Afghanistan,
the US forced starvation upon millions of people. This is how Noam Chomsky
described it: " On Sept. 16, the New York Times reported that 'Washington
has also demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel supplies...and the
elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other
supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population.' Astonishingly, that report
elicited no detectable reaction in the West, a grim reminder of the nature
of the Western civilization that leaders and elite commentators claim to
uphold. In the following days, those demands were implemented... 'The
country was on a lifeline,' one evacuated aid worker reports, 'and we just
cut the line' (NY times Magazine, September 30). According to the world's
leading newspaper, then, Washington demanded that Pakistan ensures the
death of enormous numbers of Afghans, millions of them already on the
brink of starvation, by cutting off the limited sustenance that
was keeping them alive. " (Interview with Michael Albert, reprinted in

Noam Chomsky, 911, Seven Stories, 2002). Arundhati Roy,
summarized this at the time: " Witness the infinite justice of the new century.
Civilians starving to death while they're waiting to be killed " (Guardian, Sept. 29).

The new stage of Israel's 'separation' can no longer be compared to the
Apartheid of South Africa. As Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa's Minister of
Water Affairs, said in an Interview with Al Ahram Weekly, " the South
African apartheid regime never engaged in the sort of repression Israel is
inflicting on the Palestinians " (Issue of March 28 April 3, 2002). We
are witnessing the daily invisible killing of the sick and wounded being
deprived of medical care, the weak who cannot survive in the new poverty
conditions, and those who are bound to reach starvation.

Nevertheless, the public debate in Israel revolves around questions of
efficiency: Is it possible to stop terror in such methods. Let us suppose
even that it is. Is it allowed? Is this what we (Israelis) want to be?
One people stole the 'Lamb of its poor neighbor'(5): Gaza and the West
Bank are 22% of the land of IsraelPalestine, where the Palestinians lived in
the past. On this small piece of land, three million people live, with hopes,
needs and dreams, just like ours. Since Oslo, they have been lured with
promises that we are about to evacuate the settlements and give them back
their land, at the very same time that we have been imprisoning them in
Gaza, stealing more of their land in the West Bank, and leaving them no
hope whatsoever. The Palestinian people are fighting for their freedom.

The crimes of Palestinian terror do not remove our culpability for our own
crimes. Before Oslo, as well, there was a wave of horrible terror
attacks. But at that time, after each such attack, the call was heard get out
of the territories! Then it was still understood that when you leave people no
hope, there is no way to stop the madness of suicide bombing. It is not
too late to get out of the territories.